


Ripped

by DelightfullyRidiculous



Category: Historical Criminals RPF
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Historical Figures, Historical References, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 01:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19879633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelightfullyRidiculous/pseuds/DelightfullyRidiculous
Summary: Heels clicked on the moist cobblestone of Whitechapel. It was very late, and the moon shone full and bright on the empty street. Not too many were around save for the whores who loitered in the alleyway. The cloaked figure moved quickly and calmly through the night air, breathing in the salty taste that clung on the wind. Big date tonight, our shadowed friend mused. Date indeed. A planned murder was always such an invigorating sport.





	Ripped

**Author's Note:**

> What happens when women get fed up? Women get stuff done. Did the mysterious Ripper simply tire of his sport, or were there other players in the mix?

Heels clicked on the moist cobblestone of Whitechapel. It was very late, and the moon shone full and bright on the empty street. Not too many were around save for the whores who loitered in the alleyway. The cloaked figure moved quickly and calmly through the night air, breathing in the salty taste that clung on the wind. Big date tonight, our shadowed friend mused. Date indeed. A planned murder was always such an invigorating sport.

Victoria coiffed and curled her hair into absolute perfection. Not a detail must be wrong on this night. She dressed slowly and with precision, making sure she would have everything ready for the night’s events. She cinched her ruby red corset tight enough to show off her figure, but not too tight to leave her breathless or immobile. A long dark skirt to match and her favorite boots to look fashionable as well as conceal her secret. Victoria sat down to her vanity mirror and applied a touch of rouge to her cheeks and lips. A scandalous act for sure, but tonight she had to be bold. A special hair pin added to her piled high curls and a thick choker completed the ensemble. She was ready.  
Victoria made her way downstairs and heard her father in the drawing room talking in hushed tones to some other men. She slowed her descent and listened closely for any information that would be useful to her.  
“… Can’t just do nothing, Reid!” said a thick cockney voice. Victoria leaned into the shadows and pressed her ears closer straining to hear more.  
“What do you want me to do?” Victoria heard her father, Edmund Reid, retort in an exasperated manner.  
“Further the investigation, create more profiles, question any witnesses! Something, anything before things get any worse!” Victoria recognized the man from the Yard, Abberline. She didn’t like him.  
“Can’t get any worse, if you bloody well ask me,” a stout man in an armchair mumbled drinking a brandy. Moore, another pompous fool. Another man stood at the fireplace staring in silence at the flames. Andrews.  
“Well nobody asked you, did we now Moore?” Reid asked in an increasingly angry manner.  
The Ripper’s handiwork had been splashed all across the papers this week. The police were made to look the fool as the mysterious butcher taunted them in his letters and laid out his next murder plan. With no hard leads and no definitive profile, the investigation was stagnant.  
Of course there was one very obvious solution to end the slayings, but the concept was so beyond the arrogant old men none of them could see it. Victoria saw it though. And she had been foolish enough to tell her father. She only hoped her plans weren’t ruined by her father for once seeing her as an intelligent person instead of his dainty daughter. For once she prayed for his condescension and unsuspecting gaze.  
Deciding the conversation held no pertinent information, Victoria made herself known to the men. With a delicate cough and sashay she made her way into the room to bid her father good night. Her father and his colleagues turned at her entrance and plastered fake grins across their faces, the same as hers.  
“Victoria, darling!” her father gestured to her with outstretched hands. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She turned her cheek for a kiss and played the role of dutiful daughter.  
“Sorry to interrupt, Father. I was going out and just wanted to say goodnight,” she said in her sweetest, most innocent voice.  
“Yes of course, sweetheart. You remember the men from my office, right?” He asked gesturing to his fellow windbags. Victoria nodded sweetly and held out her hand.  
“Abberline, Miss Reid,” Abberline said with a nasty grin. He dared to kiss her hand and she resisted the urge to slap his greasy face. Moore and Andrews followed suit, eyeing her like a juicy steak. Victoria could have gagged.  
“You’ll be home at a reasonable hour, and I won’t hear about any nonsense,” her father instructed her as if he was outlining her entire evening for her.  
“Yes Father, of course,” Victoria played her part marvelously but cringed inwardly. Constantly being spoken to like a child and devoid of any rights to her own life was grating on her nerves. But tonight she was going to make her own move.  
Her father escorted her to the front door and pulled her cloak tighter around her. “Where are you going tonight?” He asked with all fatherly affection. She smiled and slid on a pair of thick leather gloves that suited her for the evening.  
“Just an appointment with an old friend. It shouldn’t take very long.” Victoria was growing tired of fake smiling and wished to go.  
Her father smiled at her with loving eyes and kissed her forehead. “Alright that sounds like a pleasant evening then. I’m glad we’re over all that silliness.” He smiled again and opened the door for her.  
Victoria laughed without humor, not trusting her voice. “Yes Papa, you’re right,” the words burned like acid on the way out of her mouth.  
“Be a good girl,” he mumbled and then shut the door.  
As soon as his face was gone, a scowl fell across her beautiful face. Victoria hated her father’s affectionate gaze and loving kisses. They came from a place of well-meaning but abominable control.  
She knew her father loved her. Without a doubt she knew of his affection and devotion to her. She knew he saw her as a porcelain doll to be cared for and passed on to another gentlemen to care for and maintain. She knew he humored her out of his all-consuming love. She knew he didn’t see her as a real person. After all, she was only a woman.  
The “silliness” he had referred to was her plot to take down the Ripper. She had a plan. She gathered her own evidence, eyewitness reports, and created a plan of attack. She had a strategy down to every detail, where every agent would be located in order to move in on the killer before he was even the least bit suspicious.  
She came into his office not as his daughter, but as a detective like him. There was not a doubt in her mind she would see her plan for its genius. He would look at her with pride and admiration. He would see his brilliant mind passed on to his own daughter and behold his legacy.  
Victoria was breathless with anticipation when she showed him the perfection of such a scheme. And then he laughed. He laughed at his daughter. It was not a woman’s place to be in such a grisly scene. A proper young lady shouldn’t trouble herself with such ugly thoughts. A good girl should stay quiet and let the men do the rescuing. And good young ladies most definitely do not become secret agents of Scotland Yard to catch a killer.  
Any respect Victoria held for her father dried up in that instant. In a matter of seconds she replayed every compliment, every word of encouragement he had ever spoken to her. She threw well enough for a girl. She was smart for a girl. She read just enough to be educated but not too much to be of issue. Victoria realized in a moment what her father truly thought of her. She was the best she could be. But she would be better if she had been born a man.  
Victoria made her way down the street and steeled her nerves for the plan she was going to carry out. She was glad for her fathers’ oblivious gaze at her outfit. He didn’t notice the Chinese saber tucked snuggly at her side. If he had bothered to look at her shoes he might have been intrigued by the strange sharp points at the heels. They served well for spin kicks and slashing your opponent.  
Closer inspection would have revealed the knives concealed at her waist. She wasn’t sure what would have shocked him more: her instruments of death or the fact she was wearing trousers beneath her skirt. She walked quickly and quietly with her purpose in mind. Her comrades would be joining her soon.  
After her debacle at Scotland Yard, Victoria had to rearrange her strategy. Without the help of the police force, putting her plan into action was going to be tricky. But she had an idea of where to start.  
Chinatown, London. Finding a dojo was surprisingly difficult. Discovering a master willing to train her proved to be nearly impossible. But she did. After explaining her plan to Master Hua, the Master bowed graciously and agreed to teach her.  
That was the first stop. Her next stop was Whitechapel. To pick up a whore. Which was also surprisingly difficult.  
In her rich garbs, Victoria was mistaken for a do good church lady and none of the working girls would give her the time of day. Eventually though she was able to find a girl. In a hushed corner of the alleyway Victoria laid out her design to the young girl.  
The Ripper targeted women, prostitutes mostly, butchered them and then left them on display. He was perverse and received gratification from his work. So in order to catch a hunter, they needed to lay out prey.  
Victoria’s anger with her father resided in how clear the solution was that he refused to accept. The Ripper killed prostitutes. So the key was to assemble a group of agents disguised as prostitutes to lure the Ripper out.  
The plan was ingenious except for the “flaw” her father couldn’t get passed. The agents had to be women. There was no way around it. Training women in combat and placing them in a high profile case the newspapers had been salivating over was too great a risk for him.  
If they died, the police would be seen as monsters sending women to the slaughter. If they succeeded and caught the Ripper, the police would be a laughing stock for requiring women’s help. The cost of male pride was apparently too high in regards to the lives of innocent women.  
The young prostitute Victoria had enlisted, Emily, was terrified to her very core of being the Ripper’s next victim. But the girl had to work. With her help, Victoria amassed a team of five prostitutes. With Victoria, the girls trained at the Chinatown dojo at Victoria’s expense.  
Victoria made it clear that should any girl wish to bow out of the plan, they would still be invited to train to protect themselves from anyone who would touch them without their permission. Not a single girl dropped out. Months of training and the death tolls and mockery mounted. They had to be perfect. They had to be ready. And now their time had come.  
Victoria stepped on to the street of Whitechapel and breathed in the salty air. She had never planned a murder before. If everything went accordingly this would be a simple detain and arrest. But things were rarely simple. Each girl was prepared to do whatever necessary to end the Ripper’s reign.  
She eyed the whores in her peripheral vision. All her comrades. Any other prostitute that usually worked this area had been paid handsomely to vacate the street for a while. He was going to appear tonight, Victoria could feel it.  
Victoria let her cloak slide down her shoulders slightly, revealing her skin to the chilly night air. Blood roaring in her veins kept her warm as she laid herself out. The lamb to the slaughter. With a quick prayer, Victoria begged the Ripper to target her. This was her plan, her design. If the Ripper were to overpower her, at least the death would be her own and not of the brave girls who followed her.  
Victoria continued her slow stroll and took stock of her comrades as they worked their sections. Each girl was identifiable by the same chokers they wore around their necks. Young Emily, her wispy blonde hair glowing in the moonlight. Who would expect the throwing stars concealed in her guarders?  
Lovely Lyn walked serenely with her back arched, concealing her fighting staff between her shoulders. Victoria nodded to them both in silent acknowledgement and continued on her way.  
A soft singing voice alerted Victoria to Grace, posed seductively against a lamppost. She was a siren beckoning to her kill. Of all the girls, Grace was the best at hand to hand combat. She carried no weapon. Victoria wasn’t sure to fear for her or of her. Onward she walked.  
Rachel stood in her signature doorway and didn’t glance in Victoria’s direction. The tips of her twin Sais could be seen peeking out from underneath her short skirt. One pointed look from her and Victoria kept moving.  
It was getting darker and Victoria grew nervous. The weight of the situation finally hit her and she stopped in her tracks. She had asked a group of young women to offer up their lives to catch a monster. She could die tonight. One of them could die tonight. Success or failure rested only on Victoria’s shoulders.  
She looked up and beheld the eyes of her last comrade. Baby faced Peg. A lot of men chose her for her child like features, the pigs. Victoria looked deep into Peg’s eyes and saw the fire burning beneath them. She was no victim. Not tonight, not ever. Peg didn’t smile at Victoria, only gave her a cold gaze. Her fingers twitched underneath her shawl that concealed her two-section staff. She was out for blood tonight.  
Everyone was in place. Now they were waiting for the main event. Jack was coming. One step, two steps, three steps more. Victoria repeated her mantra to focus her mind. Keep moving forward. One step. Two steps. Three steps more…  
“You free for the evening, Miss?” a charming voice enquired. Victoria inhaled sharply, startled from her mantra.  
He was very tall. Sandy hair, thick mustache, and a top hat that would only look nice on an opera stage. He smiled in a comforting manner and bowed slightly to Victoria with one hand outstretched. Victoria swallowed and willed herself to calm.  
Nothing about this man indicated he was Jack. Nothing about this man indicated that he wasn’t Jack. As usual, Victoria had a role to play. Drawing up her sweetly fake smile Victoria stepped toward the man with an air of confidence.  
“For a price, good Sir,” she crooned as she placed her hand in his. He smiled and bent to kiss her palm.  
“That is what I was expecting, lovely Lady,” his lips fluttered over her hand and Victoria had no idea what to think. She heard Master Hua’s words in her mind, know thy enemy. Lacing her arm through his she made her way to a nearby alley.  
“I haven’t seen you here before,” the man asked. His voice was smooth and warm, like the sound you would imagine of a kindly old friend. It was a voice that held affection and promised care. It was the kind of voice you wanted to trust.  
“I am fairly new to the area,” Victoria began. She was on alert, but if he was the Ripper he had to make the first move. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other girls watching but maintaining an aloof persona. “But a lady has to find work somehow,” she laughed in a breathy manner.  
“Indeed you must, in any way you can,” the man said again. They were in a secluded area of an alley now. It was dark and cold. She couldn’t see light from either exit, but she knew she was not alone. Her fellow agents were close. And she might be standing with a killer.  
They were face to face with her back against the cool stone wall. He made no move to touch her save for the arm that was still intertwined with hers. He took his hat off and gazed deeply into her eyes.  
Victoria searched his face for any sign of malice or cruelty. He was smiling softly, blue eyes boring into hers as he slowly raised a hand to touch her cheek. For a moment Victoria feared he wasn’t the Ripper at all and simply a John seeking companionship. Please be a serial killer! Victoria screamed in her mind.  
His fingertips lightly touched her cheek and his grin widened. “You are so beautiful, Miss,” he whispered to her leaning in closer as if to kiss her. Victoria breathed out and closed her eyes waiting for his next move. A move which came in the form of knife screeching from a sheath and slashing across her throat.  
Broken from his spell, the knife sliced cleanly against the metal choker she wore protecting herself from such an attack. Tiny sparks flew and quickly and calmly Victoria moved into action.  
One swift hard kick to his chest propelling him backwards. The look of shock on his face was almost laughable! Regaining his wits he slashed again with the knife. Spin kick to the wrist knocking it clear across the alley. Now that really surprised him.  
Victoria pulled out a bowie knife from under her skirt. She hacked in a back and forth pattern forcing him back wards toward the entrance of the alley. Shwing! Shwing! Shwing! The blade cut deliciously through the air, terrifying the Ripper and enthralling his assassin. Finally he lost his footing and went down. Using the hilt of her knife she struck him hard against the face, disorienting him.  
Victoria stood over her prize with intense satisfaction. “Hello Jack!” she purred. The look of fury and undeniable hatred coursed over his lovely, charming face.  
“Whore!” he screamed at her and tried to get up. She forced him back hard with the heel of her boot and was satisfied with his pained grimace. Victoria surprised herself by laughing at his pain and frustration. The other girls were arriving now to join in on the fun.  
None of the other girls shared Victoria’s glee in her triumph but each held a relieved expression. Weapons drawn, the agents began to circle the Ripper in preparation for his arrest. Victoria breathed in and reveled in her victory. She had won! Her plan worked. She caught Jack the Ripper. She swallowed once then matched his glare.  
“Sir, you are hereby under arrest by order of Scotland Yard for attempted murder and the suspected murder of five other women.” Watching and admiring her father for years was really paying off tonight.  
Jack eyed the women guarding him and sat up. And then he laughed. He laughed in that sickening, condescending, infuriating way that every woman knows.  
“Who sends a team of whores to catch the infamous Ripper?” He laughed as blood trickled down his face from where Victoria had hit him. He didn’t seem to notice.  
“A brilliant person who knows how to catch a wild animal,” piped up Peg. Her loathing was clear in her battle stance. For the first time Victoria worried that her comrades wouldn’t agree to the arrest. They wanted blood.  
Jack laughed and swallowed some of his own blood, eyeing the women. “This is no Scotland Yard operation. I chose them because they would never come to this solution!” He laughed at his defeat when he had been so sure of his success. Victoria hated him in that second. For his murders. For his flippant disregard for life. For his evil.  
“Nevertheless,” Victoria stepped closer and produced a pair of handcuffs she had stolen from her father’s office, “you are under arrest.”  
“No, I am not,” he smiled but didn’t make any threatening moves.  
“How say you such things?” asked Rachel.  
“They will never admit to this,” he closed his eyes and leaned back as if they were all friends out enjoying the night air. “They will never admit a team of women caught me. They will never admit how they failed. Without that, I will walk free without a shred of evidence against me.” His eyes opened and bore into Victoria’s.  
He couldn’t be right. They caught a serial killer! Credit or not he had to be tried and hanged for his crimes. Whether the Yard admitted their part in the entire scheme, Jack the Ripper had finally been caught.  
Victoria met the eyes of the other girls to gauge their thoughts. They all held the same steady stare. They wanted to kill him. They knew the women he had killed. Their friends. They didn’t care about getting credit or even women’s rights. They wanted revenge.  
With a sigh Victoria stepped back, knowing the next course of action. She looked at the woman to her right. Emily. She nodded in her consent. Emily stepped forward, pulling a knife from her guarder.  
“For Mary!” She screamed as she slashed across his face.  
“For Annie!” Lyn struck him hard between the shoulders with her staff. Down he went.  
“For Elizabeth!” Grace grabbed both of his arms and pulled until a sickening crunch made him scream. Victoria didn’t flinch.  
“For Catherine,” Rachel growled as she drove her Sais into his back and yanked them back out. Blood spurted on the girl’s clothes.  
Peg stepped forward and knelt in front of him, forcing him to stare into her eyes. “For my sister, Mary Jane.” She struck hard with her staff, breaking his jaw.  
He was pathetic now. A creature shell of what Victoria couldn’t even picture as a man. He was pure evil, no way around it. He was moaning quietly, eyes full of fire and rage at his woman assassins. Victoria felt no pity for him. He gave something similar to a smile.  
“And I enjoyed every second of it.” The words slid threw his broken face and body, knowing it would be the last bit of pain he could inflict.  
“And I sentence you to death.” Victoria stepped toward him and grabbed his face in her palms.  
She wanted to see the evil light flee from his eyes and back to hell when he died. With a swift twist his neck broke with a satisfying pop. The girls were silent. He was somehow still smiling. Rising, Victoria looked at her friends’ faces. Some held tears of relief. Others were unreadable masks.  
“Our work is done from the night, ladies.” Victoria bent over the body and retrieved the butcher knives concealed within his cloak. Barbarian.  
“What now, Miss?” Grace asked. The other girls stared at her expectantly.  
“I will go and report that we caught and killed the Ripper to the Yard, providing his weapons as evidence,” Victoria said as she retrieved a discarded bag in the alley. She placed the ugly weapons inside and tried to ignore the crusted blood on them as she snapped the bag shut.  
“No Miss, I mean now that this is over,” Grace said more clearly. Victoria stared at her girls. Each held such strength, anger, and determination.  
“We will--” she began and willed her words into existence. “We will do whatever we want to do.” The girls were not expecting that and gave her a questioning stare. “No one can touch you now without your permission. You are your own person. The Master has given us skills to endure as well as thrive.” She glanced down at the mangled corpse at their feet. “And your will to survive has now made everyone safe again.”  
Victoria clutched the bag to her side and walked out of the alley as the girls followed behind. A few returned to their corners. One or two made their way toward Chinatown. Victoria made a silent promise to keep an eye out for every one of them. As for herself, Victoria was going home. 

Victoria sat in the study sipping a brandy and stared into the fire. Did she make the right call killing Jack? They were not bound by law to the Yard. They were private agents who could themselves be tried for murder.  
She stared into the fire and let the warmth seep into her icy bones. It’s over now, she thought to herself. Glancing at the clock and seeing it was well past midnight she rose to go to bed and almost ran into her father as he entered the room. She was about to assume her mask of innocence when she took in his horrified expression. She had forgotten the blood splatters all over her.  
“Good God Victoria! What’s happened to you?” he choked out and rushed to her. She heaved a sigh and held him aloft with her hand. She had planned to confront her father in the morning.  
“I am alright, Father. You’ll be pleased to learn that Jack the Ripper will no longer be of issue to you.” She looked him straight in the eye, unflinching waiting for his retaliation.  
“What do you mean, Victoria?” He was in his night clothes and was breathless from the shock of her appearance. She was surprisingly irritable despite the night’s events.  
“What I mean Father, is I did was you thought me incapable of. I amassed a team of private agents, and we tracked down and killed the Ripper.” She waited a beat before continuing. His eyes were round and unblinking, and a vein had begun pulsing in his head.  
“You are not serious,” he breathed out. Victoria was really tired of not being taken seriously.  
“Serious as death father,” she smiled at her play at words. “If you were to dispatch a unit to the corner of 81st and second at Whitechapel, you will find the crumpled body of your Ripper in a nearby alley.” She smiled and tossed the dirty bag of butcher knives at his feet. “He has been relieved of his weapons as evidence.”  
Her father regained some semblance of his senses and bent down to peek inside the bag only to jerk his face away. Without a word to her, Reid raced to the phone in the hall. Victoria waited in silence and listened as he sent a few officers to Whitechapel based off of an anonymous tip. He returned stone faced and regarded his daughter with a stoic gaze.  
“And just how were you able to detain him?” His voice was constrained and it was clear he was trying to restrain himself.  
“I recruited a team of working girls from Whitechapel.” Reid’s eyes balked at the idea of his daughter fraternizing with whores.  
She continued. “We trained in a Chinatown dojo until our Master deemed us fit for battle. Tonight we cornered and attempted to arrest Jack the Ripper. When he did not comply we were led to use deadly force.”  
She embellished a little with the unfolding events, but for the most part it was true. Reid was breathing heavily now and moved to a seat. Reaching for a brandy he took a long draught before looking at Victoria.  
“You went to Whitechapel, met with prostitutes, and killed a man!” Her father’s angry growl would have frightened Victoria once. Now they were met with a warrior’s gaze and a cold heart.  
“He admitted to the murders. We did what was necessary to keep people safe. Isn’t that what is most important, Father?” Victoria knew that didn’t matter to him. She just hoped for a moment logic would prevail with him. It didn’t.  
Reid shot up and attempted to force his daughter to be docile. For once it didn’t work. She stood straight against him and her eyes never wavered. She wasn’t his baby girl anymore. She was a killer.  
“You disobeyed me!” he roared and brought his arm back to slap her face. He was very alarmed when she caught his swing and forced him back into a chair. It was his daughter who stood foreboding above him now as his world fell apart.  
“Yes I did, Father. And I have saved numerous lives in the process. Is your own pride more important to you than innocent lives?” Victoria let her disgust show now. She already knew his answer.  
“You could have been killed!”  
“I wasn’t. No one can touch me without my permission.” Victoria’s words seemed to make her father more fearful.  
“We can’t report this!” He was gasping and terrified now. “The people can’t know that a team of whores was capable of doing what Scotland Yard couldn’t!” He started to shake and sipped more brandy.  
“Yes we did!” Victoria trilled with glee. “Is allowing women credit for the ending of a serial killer’s reign really such a terrible idea to you?” Victoria moved around him and retrieved the weapons bag.  
“Look at what your Ripper was capable of!” She pulled the bag open and revealed the dirty blades, forcing him to stare at them. “Would you prefer this madness continue instead of it coming to an end?”  
Reid stood up then and tried to scare her. “It would have ended eventually! The Yard would have caught him!” he sputtered.  
“The Yard would have caught him only if you had listened to me and done what I have now finished.” Victoria snarled. She snapped the bag shut, realizing it was useless to continue this conversation. “I will report my evidence and story to the Manchester Guardian tomorrow, anonymously.” Victoria walked passed her father and moved to go up to her bedroom.  
“You wouldn’t dare.” Her father was grasping at anything now to keep her in check. “I’ll expose you.”  
Victoria laughed and the sound frightened her father. She sounded so unafraid. “Do so as you like, Father!” She giggled. “Expose me, give me and my team the credit we deserve. In doing so you only shame yourself. That is something I will delight in.” She no longer feigned respect for the man.  
“I’ll name you,” Reid started still hoping he held some control over her. “And I will name every single female who has ever had the misfortune of coming within a foot of you!” This stopped her, and she didn’t understand his intent.  
“What will that do, Father, other than show you’re ineptitude and give women strength?” Victoria was actually curious as how he could bend her to his will.  
“You forget dear daughter, not every woman is as savage as you,” he swallowed excitedly when he noted her confusion. “Naming your friends will ruin their reputation and destroy their lives. Some of them are decent enough to know their place and stay in their station. This will leave them in shambles.” He actually smiled seeing that this got to her. Victoria regarded her father with a new found sense of loathing.  
“You would ruin the lives of innocent young women to protect your own pride and reputation? You would keep the truth from the public that Jack has been caught?” Victoria could not believe his selfishness.  
“You can’t bear the idea of what your own daughter is capable of.” She was wounded by this and she hated herself for it. “You can’t be proud of me, because I am better than you.” Victoria finished and stared her father in the eyes, seeing him for the coward he was.  
“Yes,” he spat at her. “And I have no daughter.” He turned his back on her and stared at the smoldering ashes.  
Victoria stood shocked and paralyzed for a moment. He finally saw her. He saw her brilliance. He saw her determination. He saw her worth. And it terrified him. She was after all, only a woman. Without another word she descended the stairs and walked out the door, and out of his life. 

Victoria sat in mediation at the dojo in Chinatown. The blood on her clothes had dried, making it stiff and hard to move. She didn’t care anymore. The bag of evidence sat next to her and she considered throwing it into the Thames and just being done with the whole affair.  
She breathed in, welcoming the comforting scent of wood smoke and jasmine. One step. Two steps. Three steps more. Keep moving forward.  
She was not afraid of being on her own now. She wasn’t fearful that she had no possessions to her name, save the blood encrusted clothes on her back. Fear wasn’t within her anymore. A sliding noise against the floor almost prompted her to draw her sword when she recognized the sound of Master Hua approaching.  
“How did your evening pass Victoria?” Master Hua asked. She was an older woman, but far from elderly. She could defeat any opponent who dared stand against her.  
Victoria tried to pull up a smile but settled for inclining her head to the bag. “See for yourself Master.”  
Master Hua’s feet made a swishing noise against the polished wood as she bent down to inspect the contents of the bag. She was impressed with her odd pupil. “You have done well, child,” she whispered and returned the bag to its place by Victoria. “And you have not turned it over to the police?” Hua could guess the reason why, but wanted to see Victoria’s feelings.  
Victoria breathed in and gave up her meditation. She couldn’t hide this hurt and sadness from her Master. “My father made it clear that should the news and circumstances of the Ripper’s demise be made known, it would spell catastrophe for many innocent young women, simply to spite me.” She let her body sag and felt the crushing betrayal consume her, but she did not cry. Hua was silent, then moved to face her and sat down.  
They sat for a moment before Hua answered. “I feared as much.” She sighed knowing there was nothing to be done. They sat in companionable silence for a little while more.  
Victoria started to wonder about her next step. She had no name now. She had no money. She had absolutely no idea what to do with herself. Master Hua seemed to sense her discomfort.  
“Did I ever tell you about the Legend of Hua Mulan?” Master Hua asked her.  
“No Master. Was he a relative of yours?” Victoria asked. She had focused her breathing and was trying to maintain her serenity. A story was a nice distraction.  
“She,” Master Hua corrected, “was a warrior woman who disguised herself as a man to join the army and saved all of China. When her secret was found out she was praised and rewarded as a hero.”  
“I am glad for her then.” Victoria meant it but her voice still sounded defeated.  
Hua continued her story. “It was not easy for Mulan. She faced death and the loss of her family’s honor if she did not succeed. But she prevailed. The Emperor honored her family and her father welcomed her home with open arms.” Victoria flinched at that part. Hua waited a moment and studied her favorite pupil. “Do you know why I am telling you this, child?”  
Victoria’s breathing was steady and calm. “To show me that sometimes honor and respect go before custom and pride.” She knew a Confucian proverb was going to follow this tale.  
“No, that is not the reason,” Hua said with a mischievous inflection in her voice. Victoria opened her eyes now, confused by Hua’s words.  
“I am telling you this because you are a proud and magnificent warrior. And your father is not worthy to share in your victory.”  
Hua smiled at Victoria letting her know there was someone in the world who knew her worth, and Victoria was content. The matter of her immediate future was still of issue though. “What do I do now that Jack is dead Master?” The girls had asked Victoria a similar question.  
“What do you want to do, my dear?” Hua had a way of making the answers seem obvious but just out of arms reach. Victoria thought for a moment more before answering.  
“I want to continue to serve and protect people. But I know that I will not be accepted here.”  
“I was hoping you would say something like that.” Hua rose up and Victoria followed suit.  
“Master?” Victoria allowed herself to feel hopeful for her future for the first time in a long while.  
Hua turned to leave and Victoria followed her, leaving the knife bag on the dojo floor. She followed Hua out and into the outer temple waiting for Hua to continue. “In times of trouble, there is a team, a league if you will, of specially trained operatives.” She paused to gauge Victoria’s reaction and took in her wide eyed fascination.  
“These operatives work in the shadows, in secret, righting wrongs and protecting the world from calamity. Is that something you would be interested in being a part of Victoria?” Hua smiled knowingly and could feel Victoria’s budding excitement.  
“More than anything, yes Master!” Victoria brought her hands together and bowed in deference to Hua, trying to contain her happiness.  
“Good then,” The Master touched her head in acknowledgement and they continued through the temple. They walked past a smiling Buddha and Hua pressed a secret button on its center, revealing a hidden passageway. She gestured for Victoria to walk in.  
“You will start right now.”


End file.
